Posted By Rob Tuttey I am getting an increasing amount of requests from internal and external stakeholders what my organisation is doing around the growing risk of Avian Flu and should the virus mutate to human / human spread and reach the UK shores. What sort of activities are other organisations putting into this and does anyone have any information they are prepared to share. Regards Rob

Posted By John Murgatroyd Highly pathogenic avian influenza is categorized by OIE as a “list A” disease. List A includes transmissible diseases “which have the potential for very serious and rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, which are of serious socio–economic or public health consequence and which are of major importance in the international trade of animals and animal products" Those persons unlucky enough to have become infected with the virus have a high fatality rate, characterised by a massive over-reaction of the immune system and respiratory failure.

Posted By Steven Look at defra.gov.uk Should have all your questions answered.

Posted By Nigel Hammond I went to the recent Avian Flu summit and got the impression that all major employers should have contingency plans - for a flu pandemic (not avian flu - although the current avian flu may lead to a flu pandemic). The representative from HSBC at the summit, said that they were asssuming that there would be upto 50% staff absence in a flu pandemic and were drawing up contingency plans for this. I work in social care where infection control is an important working practice that needs extra imputus. We also need to think about what would happen if medication, food and transport were restricted in a pandemic. It's not easy and highly speculative but I think that any good employer is expected to have contingency planning around this issue - not just people who work with birds! I suggest you look at the department of health web site for more guidance. You might also like to look at www.bfi.co.uk to see if they are running any more avian flu summits

Posted By Descarte In the event of a "disaster" I suppose things you may want to consider are: Limiting peoples movement / contact Allowing / providing for work at home Suggestion / provision of Tamiflu or other flu like remidies Over xmas our company suggested to all people (not just old or vunerable) to get flu jabs either through work or their local GP, as contact of the virus with someone already with flu could result in the cross breed hybrid everyone is dreading Government already have plans for vaccination of priority workers, unless you work for military, police or gov its unlikely to be you. Make provisions for people being off work ill, scaling down of work and duties during this time Ensuring if canteen on site providing food that all chicken is thouroughly cooked (though only in event of mass outbreak) Dont pick up dead birds/animals etc. General commonsense stuff I guess

Posted By Jim Walker Am I the only one who thinks this is going to be a re-run of Y2K ??

Posted By Descarte Dont you read the news? All from BBC news: "Two hundred million birds have either died from the disease or been destroyed in an effort to contain its spread." - Africa alone "A few days ago my chickens started dying. Over 1,000 died and so I have had to destroy them all" "Ethiopia is carrying out tests after the suspicious deaths of some 6,000 birds" "Niger, like most West African countries, had banned poultry imports from Nigeria, where some 300,000 chickens have reportedly died" A man who died last week in the south Chinese province of Guangdong has been confirmed by the health ministry as the country's ninth victim of bird flu - Sinday 5th March 2006 BBC news Meanwhile the agriculture ministry said 16,000 quails had already died of bird flu this year in Guizhou province

Posted By Nigel Hammond Just to pick up on a comment by John, H5N1 is a virus that can transfer from birds to humans but cannot yet transfer from human to human. We are currently at phase 3 on the WHO scale. If it changes shape in a way that makes it capable of transferring from human to human then we will be at phase 4 - which may result in a human pandemic. If this happens, it will not be called 'avian flu' - it will be 'human flu'. I'm not saying avian flu is not an issue. The more birds that get it, the greater chances of humans catching it. The more humans that get it, the greater is the chance of it mutating to the human-to-human form. At least that is my understanding based on attending the Avian Flu summit.

Posted By John Murgatroyd Bored already. facts: Give all your staff flu jabs and about 10% of them will be off work with the side effects. Those still in will have varying degrees of discomfort. Been there, done that. *IF* there is an outbreak, even of ordinary flu, advice is to stay at home, not use public transport (the best way to spread disease invented by man)...so your flu jabs won't be of much help since your staff will stay at home anyway !! *IF* the virus mutates to spread from human-human, it probably won't be as dangerous anyway, but *IF* it is, and it spreads, public transport will probably be stopped. Either way, your staff will stay at home. It's simple....go to work and risk contracting the disease, or stay at home and risk the sack. No contest. Especially with government advice to not travel ! ! http://www.who.int/csr/d...qs/en/index.html#present

Posted By Steve P UK Compounded by the number of job vacancies that will need to be filled after a pandemic....

Posted By David Kimmins All, (Offering information) Our company has a group that is tracking and working on this and produces a weekly update of what is going on in the world. If anyone would like to recieve this weekly update please send me an e-mail and I will add you to a distribution list. Additionally our company has worked on a pandemic response plan that I am happy to share with anyone who wants it after it is finished its review by legal. We are willing to share openly anything we have, as I believe each of us will benefit in the long run from others being prepared and may suffer because of those who did not have a plan. David

Posted By J Knight Just to pick up on a few points here. We have contingency plans to allow for various problems, ranging from widespread flooding, to fuel strikes, to fire. Flu is just another emergency, and judging by the way one of our care centres is already dealing with a local outbreak of Winter Vomitting Sickness, we seem to be doing OK (not being complacent, this is always under review). The last flu pandemic caused an excess mortality of around 30 - 50,000 in the UK, estimates for the next pandemic range from around 20,000 to around 250,000. Obviously the latter figure would be quite serious, but bear in mind that flu causes around 10,000 excess deaths pa anyway, and it puts the lower figures into a rather easier to deal with range. This may or may not be the next Y2K; what bothers me is that since we should have civil contingency plans in place anyway, and this is just another civil contingency, why should we be doing anything yet, when slight modifications to existing plans can be effected in a half-day's work? John

Posted By Merv Newman Technical/legal question. If we, as poultry breeders, insist that employees have the flu jab and 10% of them become ill and off work for a week, is this RIDDOR reportable ? Merv

Posted By John Murgatroyd Which flu jab would you give them ? An ordinary flu jab would only protect [some of] them from ordinary flu.....and a jab for H5N1 isn't available yet....and maybe it never will be !

Posted By J Knight JOon, This is all true and reasonably common knowledge, but we still can't safely argue from analogy. Beacuse H1n1 became Spanish flu and killed 1% of the world's population doesn't mean that H5n1 will behave in the same way. Whatever the mortality from H5n1 in its current form, this not a reliable guide to how lethal it will be when it changes into a form which can move from person to person. Your position seems to be that the virus will mutate, that it will be highly lethal, and that there is nothing anybody can do about it. So we may as well put our feet up and do nothing. Or we can wait, with existing contingency planning already in place, until we have some facts rather than analogy and speculation, and mould existing outline plans to the specifics of the situation. Unless you work in the poultry or anti-viral research industries there is nothing we can do yet other than wait and see, John

Posted By John Murgatroyd My position is better summed this way. There is no human vaccination available, yet. Since there is no human - human transmissable H5N1 virus. Whether "it" will have any effect on the spread of any mutated virus depends on what form the virus takes. If "it" becomes highly infectious between humans then it also depends upon the period from which the disease from an INFECTED person becomes capable of being spread...ie: will the person be infectious before he/she falls ill ? Nightmare scenario ? The disease become capable of being transmitted from person to person, the person infected can spread the disease before they realise they are ill and they are regular users of high-density public transport....the tube, etc. Until then, who cares ? Let the various world health units do their job. If the virus does mutate and spread, and is highly infectious, there is minimal chance (virtually none) of a vaccine being produced in the quantity required for general vaccination of the world population. The vaccine will go to those most needing it, politiceans, doctors police, lawyers and those having chronic illnesses. poultry farmers aren't in the list, nor are H&S professionals. Anyway, if you give your staff the flu jab, they won't be doing any typing for a day or two. !

Posted By Gill Sellars I am a member of a Pandemic Contingency Group. We are building the 'Pandemic scenarios' into our Business Continuity Plans. I personally think this Pandemic risk is a real issue that H&S managers need to be aware of and plan for. There are a number of good information sources available. US Government web site, which contains lots of information I particularly like the document they have circulated to individuals to help them prepare http://www.pandemicflu.gov/ A very balance Bird Flu 'Blog' site with many global links http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/ Our own Department of Health web site http://www.dh.gov.uk/Pol...anning/PandemicFlu/fs/en There are some good documents on the Web that explain the background and the risks. If you e-mail me directly I am happy to forward you copies gill_sellars@unipart.co.uk